ANCYL deputy president Ronald Lamola.

FIRED police commissioner Bheki Cele must be reinstated to the political structures of the ANC, the party’s youth league said yesterday.

Speaking at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) yesterday, ­ANCYL acting leader Ronald Lamola said Cele should be co-opted on to the party’s national executive committee.

“When he was called to serve as national police commissioner, Cele did his job with … diligence and now that he no longer part of the SAPS, there is nothing preventing him from being co-opted into the national executive committee of the ANC so that he can continue to serve,” he said.

Lamola was speaking at a function organised by a task team set up to run the league in KwaZulu-Natal after its provincial executive committee was disbanded because its members had aligned themselves with President Jacob Zuma in opposition to the ­ANCYL’s call to support Julius Malema at an ANC disciplinary hearing.

More league supporters of Zuma later arrived at the venue, wearing T-shirts bearing his face and singing songs supporting him and insulting former Youth League president Julius Malema.

DUT security guards locked them out of the premises and police were called to maintain order.

As the crowd continued to demand entry, a member of the task team, Thami Shezi, emerged to explain to them that they were barred from the premises because their singing might disrupt Lamola’address.

Tensions rose and Shezi left them at the kerb, where they continued singing and displaying placards reading “Zuma we are proud of you and we support you for the second term”, and “The ANCYL is 100% behind Zuma”.

Lamola told the audience of fewer than 150 people, mainly DUT students, that the youth should push for older politicians to be moved out of government because they were stifling creative ideas that would take the country forward.

He said it was not in the country’s long-term interests to have most of its youth unemployed.

He said the youth league would push for the expropriation of land without compensation at the ANC’s national policy conference later this month.

“The land question will never be won through cosmetic acts, it will never be won through romantic acts.”

Lamola said the league would also call for the nationalisation of mines, as this would help to bring about the economic emancipation of young people and unite the country.

“South Africans will never be united by sports. We will never be united by the African Cup of Nations and the Rugby World Cup; we will only be united by the economy, nothing else,” he said.

Lamola said black people should be able to live comfortably like white people, who had the means to send their children to private schools and to access private health care. Corporate South Africa was enjoying the benefits of democracy more than the people who had fought for the country’s freedom.

Lamola said Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimade’s designation should be Free Education Minister and the Minister of Trade and Industry should be the Minister of Nationalisation. This would make their mandates clear, he said.

“The ANC was formed in 1912 and achieved political freedom in 1994, after 83 years. I’m not prepared to wait 83 years for economic freedom.”

Lamola said the autonomy of the youth league was imperative if the ANC was to be sustained for another 100 years.

Sboniso Duma, an MPL and member of the disbanded provincial executive committee, said Lamola did not represent the ANCYL of the likes of Anton Lembede, who respected the ANC leadership. “KZN is united behind Zuma and Lamola cannot do any­thing to change that, even as Malema’s lapdog,” he added.

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